these city walls

The Boy Who Slept Too Little

There once was a boy who stayed awake until three-thirty in the morning to call his girlfriend in England just to say he loved her. They talked until it was time for her to go to work, and before he knew it, it was five in the morning. She said sweet things to him as he fell asleep, and the boy slept until noon but was still tired all day. He decided it was worth it, and that he would do it again. So he did what he could to stay awake. Chatted online, listened to music, lurked on myspace clicking every profile in his friend network. He wished that he could spin the earth at his leisure, fast-forwarding himself to the time that she would wake again, stealing just a few short moments to say good morning.

posted by Cameron Lawrence at 01:44 -->   

Rave On.

Tonight Ben and I joined a few friends to see Red Letter Agent with the Raveonettes. The Red Letter boys did fantastically, as usual, but seemed to have landed themselves another strange gig. I ran their merch table a couple of months ago at Compound, a 'hot' new club on the west side of town. That one was a swim party for the 'beautiful people,' fake boobs and men who spend more time lifting weights to get girls than actually getting girls. You know, the type of place where every person is watching to see who is watching. The type of place where rock music is less important than giggling in the pool over the attention of wannabee A&F coverboys. I think there were maybe ten people within thirty feet of the stage.

The show tonight at Eleven-Fifty Club had a similar feel, but a little different. It was part of Camel's Roaring 2000's Speakeasy Tour, which included a burlesque show cerca whenever it was before burlesque shows became really sketchy. The Raveonettes' retro vibe was a good effort to reach back to the twenties but not quite far enough. They seemed to be as out of place as we felt amongst the yuppie club-goers, many of which were dressed in flapper dresses, zoot suits, and boas, if not sporting the usual high street late night attire. We looked at our worn out Chuck's, faded jeans, and t-shirts. Then we looked at the Raveonettes on stage and thought both us and them comprised the total number of normal people in the room. Normal for a good rock show anyway, and I don't mean Nickleback or Three Doors Down.

After a couple of songs the burlesque dancer girls came out again, apparently lacking freestyle skills, and proving to be completely extraneous to the performance. I'm almost certain Sharin Foo, vocalist and bassist, was smirking for an entire song while they danced. She even looked down at the stage at one point, seemingly to avoid guffawing into the microphone. That made me feel like she was a kindred spirit up there and that, if she had the chance, she and the band would go out and get a pint with us.

posted by Cameron Lawrence at 02:05 -->   

Love is Different

I once heard Derek Webb play with his former band twice in one week. Some friends and I drove to Point Loma to see them at the beginning of our spring break, and saw them again in Phoenix toward the end. Derek’s songs seem to always be references to his life, making the separation of art and artist a blurry distinction. I always loved that about his writing, knowing that it was grounded in personal observation, experience, heartache, revelation—something I’ve tried to carry into my own song writing.

The rest of the band sat out for a song and Derek introduced it. "This song is called ‘Love is Different,’ I wrote this because love is never like it is in the media, or pop songs," or something close to that. I remember feeling disappointed as he continued speaking. It was as if he was beginning to rip out the table cloth from beneath my fancy dinner, candles, and roses—a process that has continued a little at a time and by many different hands and circumstances.

Most of us, at one point or another, are guilty of planning out our lives and the finer details it encompasses, building expectations of how things will go, what he or she will look like, the development of our careers, the total square feet of our master bedrooms. I know that the creation of expectation stems from a lack of experience. Passive observation and speculation have been the bulk of my foundation for doing so.

Now that I’m in a serious relationship, I’m learning where my expectations were far too high, that when applied to real life could make things unhealthy. But then again, in things that are actually important, Annabelle surpasses everything I could have hoped for. Being five thousand miles apart with only the phone, email, and the post wasn’t what I expected when I dreamed of falling in love. And I’m doing my best not to complain because I know there are people who are in worse situations. But missing the love of your life is never easy, no matter what the circumstances. It’s all relative, isn’t it?

I think if each of us had our way, it would be all happiness and swooning, laughter and sweeping each other off feet, but it’s not that way at all.

Cause love is different than you'd think
It's never in a song or on a TV screen
And love is harder than a word
Said at the right time and everything's alright
Love is different than you think
-Derek Webb

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely those moments of swooning, and sweeping, and amazing kisses, and candlelight. But there are so many other moments, too. There are moments when a kiss doesn’t fix an argument like it does in the latest Hugh Grant movie. There are moments when loving a person isn’t about romance at all, but about supporting them, walking through wastelands with them, praying for them, crying tears with them. Sometimes loving a person is about being honest with them about faults. Equally, loving a person can be about shutting up and listening about your own.

Life is messy. We are all broken–I don’t care who you are. I know that you know it, even if you claim otherwise. I am a broken individual. My friends are broken individuals. I know my wife will be broken, too. And that’s okay. That’s where we all put down our pitchforks and gavels and extend forgiveness, grace, healing, and love to one another. No relationship will survive without room for bad moods, mistakes, or misunderstandings. Love grows with forgiveness. It grows when sympathy and understanding are at its core. When these attributes are present and virile, trust grows, too.

Unconditional love changes lives. It has changed mine, and I am striving to reciprocate.

posted by Cameron Lawrence at 17:21 -->   

I am utterly, and completely in love with Annabelle Rachel Rhodes.

To be continued...

posted by Cameron Lawrence at 22:41 -->